Online advertising is a widely used form of promotion that uses that the Internet, the World Wide Web or other networks, such as telecommunications networks, to deliver marketing messages to users. Examples of online advertising include advertisements that are associated with web pages, social networking or electronic messages, such as email, text messages (often referred to as SMS messages) or multimedia messages (often referred to as MMS messages). Online advertising may offer many potential advantages over traditional advertising, including speed, investment efficiency, customization and/or interactivity.
Online advertising may be purchased using various advertising revenue models. For example, in a “pay-per-impression” advertising revenue model, also referred to as “cost-per-impression”, “pay-per-view”, “cost-per-view” or “cost-per-mille”, advertisers are charged for each unique user view or exposure to an advertisement. In a “pay-per-click” or “cost-per-click” advertising revenue model, advertisers are charged each time a user clicks on an advertisement. As used herein, a “click” refers to any action by a user to select an advertisement for further activity, such as being directed to an advertiser's website, as opposed to merely viewing or being exposed to the advertisement. A “pay-per-action” or “pay-per-acquisition” advertising revenue model, also referred to as “cost-per-action” or “cost-per acquisition” is performance-based, wherein advertisers are charged only if the user completes a transaction associated with the advertisement, such as by purchase of the advertised product, by sign up for the advertised service, etc., often within a certain time period. There are many variations of these and other advertising revenue models.